Tag Archives: shhh naughty words

Colouring Inside The Lines

In the here & now, , , ,

rules

I like to think that I’m one of those folk who can multi-task, and generally plough through all the things on my to do list in the course of a day. I can, most of the time. But more and more often just recently I’ve run out of day with things still left waiting to be done and it’s twisting my melon big time. I feel like I’m starting the next day off in debt you know?

I know the reasons why…it’s because I’m making myself follow some rules. Now, I’m not generally big on self-imposed rules, in fact even the words are like nails scraping down a chalkboard. I have very few, and the ones I do have usually carry about as much weight as an eyelash. For example, my rule on buying handbags…if I spot another must-have bag for my collection, I have to move one on first. One in, one out. How often do I follow that rule..? Yeah, I think I’ll plead the fifth.

So being strict with myself is sort of a new concept and it’s fair to say It’s taking a bit of getting used to. Honestly, I’m feeling a bit resentful – even tearful at times. Obviously the Asshole voice has an opinion too of course but I guess that won’t come as much of a surprise. You’re pushing yourself too hard, you deserve better, nobody can be expected to put exercise ahead of enjoying themselves, that’s just fucking unreasonable and I’m telling you no good will come of it. You’re designed for comfort not speed, and fitness isn’t your bag…

Whatever, Asshole…the rules aren’t complicated and they exist for a reason. They’re helping me to colour inside the lines of this picture I have in my head, of me living in Skinny Town. My big picture features a fit, strong and healthy woman with endless energy and a rediscovered zest for life. I want that life. I’m reclaiming it, so there’s just shit I need to do.

Firstly, I need to get at least seven hours’ sleep each night…necessary because I’m doing a lot more physical stuff and if I’m fatigued I’m more susceptible to picking up an injury. Secondly, I have to complete at least five workouts per week, more if my work schedule will allow. Also necessary to increase my strength and stamina if I’m going to stand any chance at all of pulling off this 90km trek, which is now just three months and five days away.

Thirdly I need to increase my walking by at least two miles each week. I can comfortably manage eight miles now in a single walk, and whilst I genuinely don’t have time to fit an eight mile walk in every day between working and working out, I have to fit some walking in somewhere, every day and fully commit to the longer ones at the weekend.

Charlie-dog is also slowly adapting to the new routine…those long comfortable evenings in the armchair where he’d lay on my knee and have one long tummy rub whilst drooling over whatever I was snacking on have been replaced with walking, more walking and even more walking than that. When your dog looks grateful to cross the threshold on the way in, you know you don’t have the balance right between rest and play, but in preparation for Cuba it’s just how it has to be.

I do occasionally catch him throwing a longing look at the armchair but I expect he sees me do that too. I miss it more than I can even tell you, but this is my life now. And all that is set against a backdrop of busy demanding job with a long commute, and making sure I have time set aside for my mum, who needs a lot of support. I’ve had to make some ground rules especially around sleep to avoid completely burning out, you know?

You guys are awesome, cheering me on from the sidelines and I know you’re with me every step of the way, even if it means my words don’t come with the regularity that they used to. I’d love to spend more time in here and chat to you every day like I did back in the day, but for the time being it’s one of the luxuries that I can only allow myself to get to when I’ve fitted in the non-negotiables.

So, this should really have been yesterday’s post. Better late than never, right? I’ve enjoyed an hour of writing and catching up with all your news whilst my complex breakfast carbohydrates got on with the business of being digested, and now they’re ready to fuel this fat old body on another practise run. God of Pain has helpfully supplied some weights to put in my backpack which I’m going to be wearing for the first time…fuck my life!!!

Have a lovely weekend whatever you’re up to…see you on the other side 🙂

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Will I Ever?

In the here & now, , ,

zebedee

It’s funny isn’t it, I always imagined that if ever I established a regular exercise schedule and raised my base level of fitness a bit, from there on in I’d skip through life feeling energised whilst I glowed with vitality. As I watch the scene play out in my head, of the fit and healthy me going about my daily business, I don’t even look like a version of me I can recognise.

I’m usually wearing a dazzling white shirt, matched only in it’s brilliance by my dazzling white smile, and I’m tanned and wrinkle-free with hair that behaves itself. Oh yes, and I’m usually gliding along with fluid easy strides, collecting admiring glances as I go, at the way I’m dripping with good health. Hmmm.

Cue the sound of needle scratching across vinyl, right?

The reality is, pushing my body to reclaim a level of fitness which should have been mine all along means that most of the time, something hurts. At the moment, there is nothing graceful or fluid about my movements at all. Before I’ve even taken a step I wince in anticipation – for any of you who’ve ever suffered from Plantar Fasciitis you’ll empathise with that feeling of a constantly bruised heel which means the first few steps hurt – I have it quite badly in my left foot which gives me a bit of a lopsided gait every time I set off walking.

Once I’ve got the first few steps out of the way and my foot stops hurting quite so much, my legs kick in with a reminder of all the squatting and star-jumping and jogging on the spot which has become a regular part of their new normal, and especially after I’ve been sitting down for a while it takes me a couple of minutes to properly shake off all the stiffness and persuade them that moving is a good idea.

And right now, I’ve picked up a bit of a sore shoulder which is giving me hell. It started off as a small protest from the muscle in my upper right arm which was objecting to the new regime…lets face it, the only time it’d been required to lift a fat arm above my head in the last few years was when I went to grab a bag of cheese balls off the top shelf in Tesco. It’s hardly surprising that the kettle bells came as a shock, and now my shoulder has got in on the action too and gone into lockdown.

It amuses me no end to think that colleagues in the office who obviously know about my plans to complete a 90km trek up a mountain must look at me and think how the actual fuck is she going to pull that off when the trek from her desk to the printer appears to hurt so much?? 

When I’m out walking, once I’ve got the first couple of hundred yards under my belt, everything settles down and nothing hurts, not even my knee these days but I can’t help wondering will I ever get to the point where I can just get out of a chair and start moving without shuffling like a fully-paid-up wrinkly? I’m only fifty years old, although I guess in terms of the way I’ve abused this body over the years it’s probably older on the inside, you know?

I’m still clinging onto the fantasy in my head…I mean, I’m never going to tan, and as the fat in my face is slowly disappearing, what’s left behind has already started its slow descent south. I’m probably going to end up looking like a Shar Pei puppy, and as for having hair that behaves itself, well don’t even get me started.

But you know what, I’ll happily offer up all that in exchange for being able to walk with a spring in my step…that bit I’m hanging on to. In the short term, all this exercise malarkey is going to get me over that mountain. But longer term, I just want to walk like Zebedee 🙂

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Dog Spit And Other Disasters

In the here & now, , , ,

late

Have you ever had one of those days where your hands disobey every instruction handed down the chain of command from your head? In the hotel we were using yesterday for interviews, I swear I was sending all the right instructions down my arm, like for example move hand over fruit bowl and pluck a grape from the bunch, only to find that it grabbed a muffin instead from the complimentary plate right next to the fruit bowl.

The even bigger buggeration factor was that the Asshole immediately hit the override switch which could have prevented said muffin passing my lips. Well you’ve touched it now…nobody else can eat it. You can’t put it back on the plate so unless you want to walk around with it in your hand all day you’d better eat it, and quickly.

Today didn’t get off to a much better start, to be honest. Things I learned today would include the fact that it doesn’t matter how diligently you set your phone’s very loud and extremely annoying alarm, if you forget to put it on charge and it runs out of juice in the wee small hours, it’s not going to go off.

I’d left my bedroom window open overnight and I woke to the sound of the dustbin lorry outside my house. I sort of laid there for a minute before the penny dropped that my wake-up call had come courtesy of something other than my loud and extremely annoying alarm, so I felt rather smug for a moment, as I realised I could probably go back to sleep for a bit, until it went off. Out of interest I reached for my phone to establish just exactly how much longer I could sleep, to be greeted with a blank screen.

Oh dear. As the clock on the wall slowly came into focus, it confirmed that I had in fact overslept. It was ten past six, and I had an appointment in the Kingdom of Pain at six thirty…in the next town. Shit.

Now, I have a lot of respect for the God of Pain, and also fear. Mainly fear. It’s the stare, you know? No fucking chance was I walking in late.

It’s the first time I’ve got out of bed in a long time without doing the ooh ahh morning shuffle, mainly because I didn’t have time to notice anything hurting as I flung myself across the room like an exorcet missile. Charlie-dog opened one eyelid from his vantage point on the bed, confused.

Running around the bedroom first thing in the morning, usually with my underwear in his mouth, or a stray slipper is kind of in his job description, not mine and the role reversal momentarily baffled him. He was clearly up for a game though, with warp speed he joined in, helpfully licking my face, glasses and all as I bent down to tie my trainers, which just added to the confusion.

I just about made it, screeching into the car park like Starsky and Hutch, all the time cussing the dog – I was looking at the world with blurry vision due to dog-spit on my glasses which I hadn’t had time to clean. As I took them off to give them a quick wipe on my teeshirt everything suddenly became much clearer and I realised that actually, I must have gone to bed last night with one of my contact lenses still in, which is why nothing was in focus with my specs on. Oh, and I had my pants on backwards.

Honestly, sometimes it’s really hard to be me 🙂

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That’s Just What Muscles DO

In the here & now, , ,

vest

One of the things that I’ve come to value the most about this journey that I’m on, is the discipline I’ve developed around pulling out learning from situations that happen around me. I’ve never been very good at seeing what’s happening right under my own nose – people I hang around with have been known to go on holiday, then come back and fill me in on what’s been going on whilst they were away. I get very absorbed in my own carry-on, maybe a little too much sometimes, you know? I’m fascinated by people, but only when I remember to look.

It’s two weeks now since I first stepped foot into the Kingdom of Pain, and apart from all the hurting, some good things have happened. I’ve got to admit, I rocked up with huge trepidation last night, for two reasons. Firstly I’d booked myself into a session at 6.30am, but written it down in my calendar as 6.30pm. At 6.30am I was still tucked up in bed snoring my head off…whoops.

God of Pain texted me enquiring as to my whereabouts…oh shit. Hello bad-books, here I am… rumour has it that bad things happen to folk who don’t show up. I apologised of course, and immediately re-booked myself onto the actual evening session, but when I realised it was the same class I’d done on my very first visit, my heart sank even further. Yes, it was that one…the one that nearly killed me. I hadn’t repeated it since that first time, so I had two reasons to be scared as I pulled my lycra pants on last night.

Closely followed, it has to be said, by two reasons to be relieved. First of all, I wasn’t flogged, or bawled out, I didn’t even get the stare. Perhaps he’s more forgiving, when it’s the first time..? There won’t be a second, I’ll make sure of that. And you know what else I worried about for nothing? Last night, I kept up.

Two weeks ago, all the getting down and getting up again left me wrung out ’till I couldn’t get my breath. My knees barely survived the experience and some of the exercises were beyond me. Now don’t get me wrong, by the time we’d finished last night I was wringing wet through and tired, but I did it. I did it all. It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t elegant and I still have a hall pass on assorted body parts being allowed to touch the floor where other folk have to keep theirs suspended in mid-air, but in my own little corner, I kept up.

I am genuinely astonished at how far I’ve come in the last two weeks. I could never have imagined that my body would respond in the way that it has. But do you know what I’ve learned, in the course of pushing myself? I don’t need to be scared of things hurting a little bit, in the moment. People who are really really fit hurt too. Who knew? My muscles don’t scream when I push them because I’m fat…my muscles scream because that’s what muscles do when you make them work hard.

This particular lightbulb switched on for me a few days ago when I found myself  doing my own wonky version of a plank next to one of the uber-fit skinny string beans. Towards the end of the minute, long after my arse had migrated north in a desperate attempt to end the agony, she remained firmly in her plank, even though her whole body was trembling like she had her own personal earthquake going directly underneath the yoga mat. She was hurting, just like I was, even though my plank was a bit on the pathetic and short-lived side in comparison to hers.

Somehow, I’d always imagined that demanding these things of my body hurt me far more than people who were fit. And that pissed me off. I felt aggrieved, like it wasn’t fair. I imagined that once you were skinny and fit, it was easy to stay that way because sore muscles would be a thing of the past…working out would be a doddle if you only had one arse inside your yoga pants, right?

That’s bollocks. I totally get it now…you work out, you hurt for a bit and then you reap the benefits afterwards when you feel more flexible, or stronger, or fitter. It doesn’t matter how fit you are, working out hurts, in the moment. It’s supposed to. It sort of means you’re doing it right.

It’s probably one of the biggest light-bulb moments of my journey so far. The second I realised that actually everybody hurts, I stopped feeling like nobody understood how hard it was for me because I’m fat. For the very first time ever I totally embraced the fact that I’m just one of them. Hurting right alongside them in pursuit of the life I want to live. Just like they are.

It’s a fucking revelation 🙂

 

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Yesterday, I Laughed…

In the here & now, , ,

boxing

So, let’s have a recap. My first class was Body Blast, and I’ve told you all about that one. My second was Fat Furnace, and I’ve told you about that one too.  I haven’t talked about the third one yet. That’s not me being slack, it’s more that I’m still trying to get over the shock. When you’re no longer living a life where you can reach for a packet of Hobnobs to help you to process your thoughts, it sometimes takes a while, you know?

My friend had told me that I’d laugh, in this class. She said that it’s the most fun I’d ever have. And it had the word ‘lite’ in the title, so you know, I sort of thought that this one might be easier. I believed her. I mean, pick up any item in the supermarket with the word ‘lite’ on the pack and you’re pretty much guaranteed it won’t taste of anything…go on, tell me I’m wrong. It’s something, full of nothing. So I believed her when she said I’d laugh, I mean why wouldn’t I?

My friend lied. My friend’s a bitch.

So there I was, aching muscles and a body on the edge, walking into Box-Lite like a lamb to the slaughter. Session three of my souped-up fitness regime and for the first time there was no fear, just anticipation…I’d come to laugh. This was bound to be a walk in the park compared to Body Blast and Fat Furnace, right?

Right. It started to dawn on me during the warm up that perhaps I’d jumped the gun a bit, right around the time where we had to bounce on our toes whilst holding a squat position. That hurt like crazy, the muscles in my thighs were on fire and it certainly didn’t bode well for an easy ride. God of Pain demonstrated from the front, and made it look effortless, as if he had springs on the balls of his feet.

When we really got going and pulled on the boxing gloves, I learned how to throw a punch, in fact I learned how to throw four different punches. Imaginatively named one, two, three and four. Then I learned how to duck. Well, he called it roll, but thankfully there was no actual rolling going on. And punching and rolling were easy peasy lemon squeezy. I so had this. Except for my legs, which were required to keep up a continual bounce, on the toes…my calves were not happy. Unhappy calf muscles underneath burning thigh muscles isn’t a marriage made in heaven, if you want me to be completely honest.

I was partnering God of Pain so we could work on my technique. Not said through gritted teeth at all. Apart from my legs, I coped okay, or at least I did at first. When it was one, pause, two, pause, three, pause, four, I was fine. One, roll, two, three, roll, four…still fine. He introduced quarter turns and half turns, and all the time I’m bouncing and throwing punches onto the pads he was holding up in front of me. I’m fading fast at this point, and the asshole voice in my head was in overdrive.

That’s enough now. Why don’t you pretend you need a wee so you can at least go and have a sit down for a minute….this can’t continue, everything hurts and you’re on the verge of overdoing it. He’s driving you too hard, can’t he see you’re a fat old woman who shouldn’t even be here. Enough now, time out!

Quite apart from the asshole conversation going on in my head, things got a bit complicated when God of Pain started going faster with his instructions. And then he started playing dirty, I mean one, two, three, four is one thing…one, four, two, three messed with my mojo. I looked around and saw lots of people in fits of giggles as they punched and rolled and bounced their way through it and tried to keep up. I wasn’t laughing, in fact it was all I could do to fucking breathe. And with the best will in the world, my punches landed on the man mountain like feathers on a breeze.

Onethreetwofourrollquarterturnleftonetwofourthreerollonerollhalfturnleftfourthreetworollroll…shit. That’s torn it.

Having got nowhere at all with gentle persuasion, the asshole voice leap-frogged right over the chain of command and went straight to the director of feet, screaming FUCK IT !! THAT’S ENOUGH LADS, YOU CAN’T GO ON AND SHE’S NOT FUCKING LISTENING…TAKE HER DOWN!!

And they did. The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor looking up at several Gods of Pain, arranged in a very bohemian rhapsody kind of way above my head.

Scaramoosh Scaramoosh will you do the fandango…

I got up again real quick when I clocked the look on his face…clearly being tripped up by your own feet is for wimps. And so it continued, ’till it was done. And I survived. There were two moments where I genuinely thought I was going to throw up from all the bouncing, punching, rolling and turning, and several moments where I wanted so badly to quit and tell him where to shove his gloves, but you know what, no way. My legs burned for the rest of the day. But I was back there for Fat Furnace the very next day, and yesterday I did my second box-lite session.

I wasn’t partnering God of Pain yesterday…yesterday it was easier.

Yesterday, I laughed 🙂

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